<html><head><title>Linux Wireless Tutorial</title></head>

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<b><font face="tahoma" size="+5">My Linux Wireless Tutorial using Linksys WPC11</font></b>
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<br>
<b><font face="tahoma" size="+2">Disclaimer</font></b>
<br>
<p> This tutorial has been tested and verified for systems running Linux
Mandrake 9.1 although if you have a current linux distribution that can recognize
your card you should be ok. <br>
<br>
<font face="\&quot;tahoma\&quot;" size="-2" color="#ff0000">

!!! Important Updates !!!
</font></p><p>
<font face="\&quot;tahoma\&quot;" size="-2" color="#ff0000">Linksys WPC11 V4 - It's been brought to my attention that Linksys decided to change the chipset on their
version 4 of the WPC11 card to a Realtek one.  So... this tutorial will no apply to that version.  The tutorial applies to cards
up to version 3.  Thanks to John Taggart for pointing that out.  I am not sure if it is possible to use
version 4 under Linux but if I ever come across a version 4 card and mange to get it working then I'll
post that up here.
</font></p>

<p>
<font face="\&quot;tahoma\&quot;" size="-2" color="#ff0000">Linksys WPC11 upto V3 in Mandrake Linux 9.2 - If you are running Mandrake Linux 9.2 there is no need
for this tutorial anymore.  Their network configuration wizard manages to detect the card and will bring up
a dialog to configure the wireless options.  It doesn't really say what all the options in the dialog are so
if you are lost then you might benefit from some of the stuff in this tutorial.  If you have another network
card in your machine that is not wireless the Mandrake wizard might be a bit confusing because it brings
up the wireless options even for the regular wired card.  The cards will get configured correctly but you might
still want to remove the wireless specific settings in the ifcfg scripts at /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/
It will most likely be ifcfg-eth0 and/or ifcfg-eth1.  I also like to add the DHCP_TIMEOUT option
because I don't always have a connection so waiting more than a minute for the script to finally give up
pisses me off.  I usually put in DHCP_TIMEOUT=5 because I think the script retries about 3-4 times.  So
the actual time to fail will be about 20 seconds.
</font></p>


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<b><font face="tahoma" size="+2">Steps</font></b>
<br>
<br>
Here are the steps I took to get a wireless connection under Mandrake 9.1.  MAKE SURE THAT YOU ARE root!!!
<br>
1.  install the wireless-tools package
<br>
2.  insert the WPC11 card
<br>
3.  execute /sbin/cardctl ident and observe the line containing manfid 0x..., 0x...
<br>
4.  create and/or edit the file /etc/pcmcia/hermes.conf
<br>
     put these lines in hermes.conf
<br>
<pre>device "orinoco_cs"
class "network"
module "hermes", "orinoco", "orinoco_cs"
# Linksys WPC11
card "Instant Wireless Network PC Card"
manfid 0x..., 0x... #the stuff from part 3
bind "orinoco_cs"
</pre> 5.  restart the pcmcia services by executing /etc/rc.d/init.d/pcmcia
restart or whatever script restarts the pcmcia services on your distribution 
<br>
6.  execute /sbin/lsmod and make sure that the following appear in the output:
<br>
orinoco_cs
<br>
orinoco
<br>
hermes
<br>
7.  The device eth1 should be the WPC11 card if you initially had another network card in your machine/laptop.
<br> 8.  You must know your SSID or ESSID!  If your network also uses encryption
you must know the key(s).  Note that iwconfig in the wireless-tools package
currently does not support generating they key by passphrase so you must
know the exact key.  In my case I wrote the key down as it appears in hex
on my router's configuration.  There are a few options to setting up eth1
with the correct settings.  One option involves modifying the /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts
script, another option is to write the options into the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1
script if you are running on a system with that script, or you can simply
use the iwconfig utility.  I will only describe the 2nd and 3rd option. <br>
8a.  Setup using the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1
<br>
A sample file will look something like this:
<br>
<br>
DEVICE=eth1
<br>
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
<br>
DHCP_TIMEOUT=5
<br>
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
<br>
ONBOOT=yes
<br>
WIRELESS_ESSID=MYWLAN
<br>
WIRELESS_ENC_KEY=5A2G928D16C4C658EC071C6D09
<br>
HWADDR=00:02:2d:9f:32:5b
<br>
MII_NOT_SUPPORTED=yes
<br>
NEEDHOSTNAME=yes
<br>
<br> You can probably omit the lines DHCP_TIMEOUT, MII_NOT_SUPPORTED, and
NEEDHOSTNAME if you don't see a need for them.  DHCP_TIMEOUT simply gives
the number of seconds before the dhcp client stops trying to get an IP address
via DHCP server.  The WIRELESS_ESSID, and WIRELESS_ENC_KEY are made up so
do not try to use them for your setup.  HWADDR is the MAC address for your
card which you can retrieve by executing ifconfig eth1.  If you DO NOT use
WEP encryption on your network then you can omit the line WIRELESS_ENC_KEY.
 The sample file contains a 128-bit encryption key.  If you choose to use
a 40/64-bit key then it will be smaller than the sample one.  REMEMBER that
passphrases are not currently supported so you must know the exact key. 
After saving the configuration file execute ifup eth1 <br>
<br>
8b.  Setup using the iwconfig utility
<br> You may want to look through the iwconfig man pages that should have
been installed if you properly installed the wireless-tools package.  Type:
 man iwconfig and read through all the options.  A minial setup would be: 
<pre>iwconfig eth1 essid MYWLAN key 5A2G928D16C4C658EC071C6D09</pre>
(if you are using WEP encryption) or
<pre>iwconfig eth1 essid MYWLAN</pre>
(if you are not using WEP encryption).
<br>
<br> Keep in mind that if you do not use the 2nd option then you will have
to type the above iwconfig commands every time you start your machine. Now
that you have typed the command in then execute dhcpcd eth1.  If you do not
have dhcpcd on your machine like mine running Mandrake 9.1 with zeroconf
then you should execute dhcclient eth1. <br> Hopefully you'll get an IP address and you will be ready to go.  If
you are doing this at a University you might have to connect to your school's
VPN server.  You need a VPN client such as the Cisco VPN client.  If your
kernel was compiled using GCC 2 then make sure you get the Cisco VPN client
for GCC 2 or GCC 3 if your kernel was compiled with GCC 3. <br>
If something happened where you couldn't get an IP address try to execute "service network restart" and see
<br>
if that helps.  It actually helped me when I installed the same card on another laptop.
<br>
<br> If you are having trouble try to troubleshoot by looking at the status
lights on the card and using the iwconfig utility.  There are two lights
on the WPC11 card version 3.  One says Power, the other says Link.  If you
successfully manage to set the proper ESSID then you will see that the Link
light now remains steady and does not blink.  If your Link light keeps blinking
then you know that the card has not been able to find the WAP.  You can verify
that by executing iwconfig and observing the Access Point line.  If you see
something like:  44:44:44:44:44..... then you have not found the access point. 
<p></p>

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